Heartbeat of Loneliness
by BecauseHeroesNeverDie
Summary: He smiled, a sad smile, mostly. Without his pictures to protect him, those were the only kind of smiles he could muster. They couldn't protect anyone but himself and it all felt so wrong. -Hughes centric-


He always had a photo on hand. His wallet was bursting with a million or more candid snapshots. There were always two tiny angels in his pocket, laughing so loudly that he couldn't hear the gunshots echoing around him during the late nights he spent alone in his office.

But they could never stop the bullets. They only drowned out the noise.

Happiness is never enough to stop the night from coming.

He hated the way books falling onto the floor all the way on the other side of the room sounded like buildings falling in the midnight silence.

There were so many books in the corner, all sprawled out, one on top of the other. The Elric boys had left them there.

Hughes had insisted that they get some rest after watching Edward fight to keep his eyes open for ten or twenty minutes. He told them they didn't have to clean up, insisted they just leave the books in the corner. Edward smiled a small strange smile that spoke of years he hadn't lived. He wondered if the boy couldn't dream, if all of hell was unleashed on him the moment he closed his eyes, expecting respite. Hughes would never let on that he had nightmares. He only had them when he fell asleep on his desk, paperwork cushioning his head, scattering around as he thrashed silently at a world of pain that couldn't, or at the very least, shouldn't be able to reach him anymore.

Alphonse's voice had echoed against the walls. A childish grin could almost be heard in his voice before he gave a tired sigh, and rose to his feet with a clatter. It wasn't hard to miss the hollow echo that resounded through his large body. He was empty, dead, but still there. Hughes didn't know which was worse. He knew so many hollow people. They all tried to live the best they could. He knew so many dead people who didn't have any more chances.

Hughes picked up the fallen books and stacked them up, one on top of the other.

A small bookmark fluttered from in between the pages of a monster of a book, all leather bound with an enormous rusted lock on the cover. It was covered in sketches. Strange, childish scribbles. There were one or two good ones, of cats curled up with spots of light and shadow dancing on their backs. It was mostly covered with scribbles of a pair of stick-figure boys Hughes assumed to be the brothers. Wandering along train tracks, standing in a grassy field, always searching, always seeking, but there was one other, crossed out several times, in anger, in sorrow. It was one of a boy with a braid running halfway down his back holding a rock or something with lines spreading from it as if it were glowing.

They were the same, really. Seeking happiness that they didn't deserve to take from others.

Happiness was paid for in blood and tears. He had never wanted the Elric brothers to learn this. He did not want to see them lose that hope they had. The one that shinned so strongly in Edward's eyes and emanated softly from Alphonse's voice.

He smiled, a sad smile, mostly. Without his pictures to protect him, those were the only kind of smiles he could muster.

Rain pounded up against the window, filling the room with its shaking, unrelenting sobs. Hughes could only sigh when it rained.

He thought of how he should be heading home.

He exited his office, waking up Sheska with his cheerful "Good night." The front door opened and the rain came in, tapping its lonely rhythm against his polished shoes. He walked out into the night, the rain, the cold air and the biting wind. It only took a moment to realize that it was far too much for him.

But he wasn't going back into the office. He was going home. To the happiness he'd paid so much for. He wasn't letting the rain stop him. He would be happy, no matter what.

Hughes ran for the nearest refuge.

The telephone booth.

For a moment he stood silently, rocking on his heels, shaking his hair dry and staring intently at the telephone out of the corner of his eye. Then, he snatched it up, closing his eyes, his fingers sliding over the numbers. He listened to the soft sound of each number being dialed. He gave out the necessary information to the operator before she could get out two words edgewise. He swayed, waiting for the dial tone to stop, waiting for a voice to emerge and fill the silence. He hated the way the dial tone echoed through the booth, reverberating in his chest. The heartbeat of loneliness.

Nothing was as comforting as the moment when a voice appeared, tired and irritated but still able to break through the sound of the rain.

"Hello?"

"Hey, Roy, how's it going?"

"Hughes, I know you just left," the voice sighed, considered hanging up, but instead continued "Why the—how the hell did you manage to call me so soon?"

"Well, there is a phone booth outside, right? And the rain's very heavy out here, as well…but wait, why such a sour greeting for a man who's been supporting you for years?" Inspiration flashed and he couldn't stop the time-worn joke from making the reappearance it demanded. "Buuuut, you know who would really support you?"

"Who?" He could almost hear Roy roll his eyes. It was nice to know that there were some things in the world that always stayed the same. Something that clung to the earth to stop it from spinning so fast.

Hughes leaned closely into the receiver, cupped his hands around it and whispered conspiratorially "A wife."

"Good night, Hughes." Roy nodded curtly; Hughes could see it so clearly in his head, all the motions that went with the rise and fall of his voice. Roy hung up, went back to his work, swearing under his breath as the smallest of smiles caught him off guard. Hawkeye was standing somewhere nearby, Hughes didn't know her enough to place her exactly, but he knew her well enough. She was at attention, her back straight, her fingers never more than a few inches from her gun. But she was relaxed, smiling too, offering to help lift the load off Roy's shoulders. He would smile back, even smaller than the last time, but far less weary. He would tell her he could do it on his own, but Hughes knew that even if she didn't physically help him, her presence was what pulled Roy through days and nights that would have suffocated him long ago.

Hughes grinned. _There she is, Roy. That wife I was telling you to find. All you have to do is make her yours. _

But Roy was never one for saying things that only needed to be felt. Never had been.

Hughes stared out at the rain, frowned and pulled his wallet out of his back pocket.

A snap shot of Gracia stirring something delicious over the stove, blushing slightly at his barrage of complements, his insistence that her food had a certain healing quality. Elysia stumbling over words as she tried to read, sitting in the lap of that wonderful Winry; riding a tricycle; running to her father after work one day; just standing and smiling, like the angel she was. Gracia half-asleep in an armchair in the living room, peace and content etched into every curve and crease in her face. Gracia with her hand stretched out, trying to repel the camera, laughing.

All the tiny moments that he loved. All the little things that added up to happiness. Those were the things that his pictures were made of.

He couldn't stop taking those pictures. Every time he saw something that made him burst with happiness, anything that could prove that there was, ultimately, something wonderful in this heartless, rainy world he lived in, he had to stop that moment, right as it tried to slip past his fingertips. He caught it in a flash, wrapped it up and kept it in his pocket. So all those moments would be his.

There were ones he wouldn't show anyone. Ones no one knew he took. Roy crouching over a pile of paper work, frowning with Hawkeye silently at his side. The Elric boys pouring over all those books. Moments he had no right to take.

But he wanted to help them, to take their sadness and wrap it up, to suffocate it in his back pocket. Until they could only hear the angels singing. Until the pain was all his. He was the only one who could take all that suffering and still smile.

"Looks like the rain's clearing up." Hughes muttered to himself, though it didn't look at all as if the rain would stop.

Happiness was paid for in blood and tears and trips into the cold, lonely rain that threatened to never stop.

The warmth that spread from the photographs in his back pocket and the voices over the phone was enough to keep him going until he reached his front door and collapsed into the joy he had worked so hard to build.

He opened the door of the phone booth and stepped out, letting the rain soak him.

He slipped the photographs back into his pocket to protect them all from the rain.

**_-Writer's Woes: What do I have to say about this...? No idea. Just a random oneshot. I wasn't sure what to call him. Maes felt too personal...What's with me? _**


End file.
